clap (the clap)

n

venereal disease, gonorrhoea. The only widespread slang term for the condi-tion, this word was derived from French (clapoir, meaning a swelling, or clapier, meaning a brothel) in the late 16th cen-tury. It became a taboo, and therefore slang term only in the 19th century. The specific reference to gonorrhoea had widened to include other venereal dis-eases by the 1950s.

► 'For while he nibbles at her Am'rous Trap

She gets the Mony but he gets the Clap.'

(Poor Pensive Punck, poem by John Dryden, 1691)

► '"Ain't got the clap have you?"

"God no! It's just a sense of cosmic boredom".'

(Robert Crumb, cartoon in Head Comix, 1968)